


such a subtle sting

by skvadern



Series: if we make it through the night everybody's gonna hear us [6]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Autistic Character, F/M, MAG047 - The New Door, Other, Sasha James Lives, Sensory Overload, and decidedly not in the fun way, canon-typical idiocy, jon is just straight up not having a good time rn, really really Really creepy monster flirting, spiral related mind-fuckery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:27:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22420309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skvadern/pseuds/skvadern
Summary: “Jon,” she says, “think very carefully. Which door did Helen Richardson leave your office through?”Jon blinks owlishly at her. “Ah, the one…” he trails off and looks down the length of his arm where he’s pointing, and she follows it too. They both look at the patch of wall he’s pointing at. The patch of wall with no door in it.Helen Richardson comes to the Magnus Institute to give her statement. She doesn't leave through the right door.
Relationships: Sasha James/Jonathan Sims, Sasha James/Michael, hints of Michael/Jonathan Sims
Series: if we make it through the night everybody's gonna hear us [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1555078
Comments: 30
Kudos: 177





	such a subtle sting

**Author's Note:**

> sorry its been so long yall, i got blocked and by the time id unblocked it had Grown. 
> 
> WARNING: this fic contains an autistic character getting overstimulated to hell, being in a lot of pain due to this, and having a meltdown offscreen. there's also michael-typical creep factor, and while it never steps properly out of line, there is still Creepiness directed at sasha and jon. if i've fucked up anywhere, esp on the autistic!jon stuff, please let me know.
> 
> title from deep by marian hill

Gertrude Robinson’s laptop is…interesting.

Sasha manages to get into it fairly quickly; however deep in this whole supernatural world Gertrude was, cybersecurity obviously wasn’t one of her concerns. Once they’ve got access, it quickly becomes clear that keeping records of her activities wasn’t much of a concern either.

“Did she even use this thing?” Jon mutters, running a hand through his hair. Even stressed and dishevelled, at almost eleven at night, Sasha can’t help but find him handsome.

“Eh, there’s a few documents,” she replies. “Budgets, forms. I can get her internet history as well, probably her email account.”

“You can hack into her email account?” Jon asks, looking impressed. “Sasha, have I ever told you how much I admire your work?”

A goofy smile pulls at the corners of her mouth, and Sasha ducks her head. “Hate to break it to you, but I’m not going to do anything fancy. She probably had the password saved to autofill.”

“Oh,” Jon says, flushing, obviously embarrassed, and she gives in and leans over to press a quick kiss to his cheek, just brushing his lips. He scowls at her, cheeks still darkened, but she knows him well enough now to know he doesn’t mean it.

When Sasha’s found everything interesting, they go over it together – she sends half of it to Jon’s laptop, speeding up the process. Jon takes the various budget spreadsheets and Sasha handles the internet history. He’s done while she’s still buried in various online orders of – well, they’re all pretty disturbing. Even remembering the flash of ice in Gertrude Robinson’s eyes as she sized up some of Artefact Storage’s most dangerous inmates, it’s hard to imagine her using all that lighter fluid.

“Apparently, Gertrude was something of a jet-setter,” Jon says, sliding his laptop over. He’s highlighted a sum marked for ‘travel’ that does seem excessive, especially for an archivist.

A bit of poking around Gertrude’s email account nets them plenty of receipts and booking information – flights, hotels, hired cars, all over the world. “Gertrude ‘Five Continents’ Robinson,” Jon mutters dryly, smiling at Sasha’s laugh.

“Interesting that Elias was approving all this,” she mentions. “And Wright, before him.”

“So it probably was work-related, then,” Jon replies. “I do wonder what the job description of Archivist meant, in Gertrude’s time. Certainly it didn’t involve much filing.”

Sasha snorts, then remembers the lighter fluid and petrol. She doesn’t really want to tell Jon – she already knows how he’s going to take it – but they’ve come this far together, there’s no use keeping secrets now.

She’s right – Jon tries to be flippant, but there’s an edge of real panic in his expression as he stares at the webpage. “So, in conclusion, my predecessor was an international criminal who went out of her way to do her job as badly as possible.” He sighs deeply, sagging slightly in his chair. “Well, at least I know who’s shoes I’m filling.”

“Somehow, I really doubt we know everything about Gertrude Robinson yet,” Sasha mutters, running a finger down the keyboard. “Anyway, cheer up, it’s not all flammable. There’s the torches too, and the pesticides.”

“The pesticides were probably used as explosives,” Jon mutters darkly.

“I think you’re thinking of fertilisers,” Sasha replies, arching an eyebrow at him.

Jon splutters for a second, then he blinks. “Well, I don’t know about the petrol and all that, but pesticide would be fairly useful against something like Jane Prentiss, don’t you think? And there’s enough statements about old, abandoned buildings and, and some sort of malevolent darkness, that I can see why she’d need all those torches.”

“Fear of the dark,” Sasha muses. “That would make sense, that one’s really common.”

“Entomophobia isn’t exactly unusual, either.” Jon’s fingers tap on the tabletop, quick and insistent. “No wonder the Archives are such a mess – why spend all your time down in the basement when you could be going out there to actually _fight_ these things?”

Sasha blinks, trying to superimpose the cardigan-wearing old woman she remembers with the image of some leather-clad monster-hunter, battling against dark forces. It’s…way more plausible than it should be. There had been something hardened about Gertrude Robinson, beneath the grey curls and horn-rimmed glasses, and the rest of what she can only think of now as some sort of granny drag.

“Don’t go getting any ideas,” she warns. “You and I aren’t exactly badasses. We’re just researchers – the nerds who die halfway through the film.”

“Speak for yourself,” Jon mutters, but he seems to be taking her seriously, thank God. He pushes his laptop away with a sigh, and wanders into her kitchen; she can hear him filling the kettle. “That’s enough for tonight – you look shattered.”

“Oi!” Sasha calls back, but to be honest, she doesn’t mind. She _is_ tired, in the tense, overstretched way she remembers from her time in Artefact Storage. Sure, they’re making connections, getting closer to _something,_ and that’s good, that’s great – but it’s a lot. All of this is a lot. She doesn’t really want to think about it anymore tonight.

Also, no matter how bad she looks right now, she’s sure that she’s got nothing on Jon. His nightmares are coming more often now; it seems like every other night she wakes up to his side of the bed already cold, or finds him sitting up and watching her with tear-tracks dried into his cheeks. They could both do with an early night.

Meandering into the kitchen, she finds Jon leaning against the countertop, head in his hands. He looks up when he hears her enter, giving her a tired smile, and when she’s in grabbing distance he reaches out to take her hand and slide an arm around her waist.

When she bends her head to slot their mouths together, the whole world fades out of focus. There’s just the softness of Jon’s lips moving against hers, now beautifully familiar and as warming as a shaft of sunlight.

“Thank God I’m doing this with you,” she says when they part for air. “I don’t think I could handle this shit alone.”

Jon hums gently, and moves away to get to the cooling kettle. “I doubt I’d be making much headway on my own, either. It’s a good job we’re both too curious for our own good, really.”

“Yeah,” Sasha replies, turning to get a couple of teabags out the cupboard, and fighting back a sudden sick curl of dread.

~~~~~

When Jon calls her name from his office, Sasha immediately stands up, ignoring Tim’s speculative look. She’s been organising some more of the discredited statements, but that can wait. Jon sounds…worried.

The anxious woman who’d been giving her statement is already gone. Sasha hadn’t noticed her leaving, but then the whole point of going over the discrediteds had been to keep her occupied. Fascinating as the whole supernatural conspiracy thing is, sometimes a girl needs a break.

She’d been right about Jon. There’s a feverish light in his eyes and his hands are clenching and unclenching. “I –“ he starts, “I’ve just had a statement from someone who claims they met our Michael.”

It takes a moment for that to sink in fully, but when it penetrates she feels sick. “Michael? What happened?”

“According to her, she spent three days wandering an endless series of impossible corridors before having to jump through a mirror to escape it.” Jon rubs a hand over his face, pressing hard against his eyes. “She was…in a bad way.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Sasha murmurs, curling her arms around her stomach as if she can hold in the sudden nausea.

It’s not like she trusts Michael. She is _definitely_ too smart to trust Michael. It’s just…she’s been dreaming of strange architecture and a twisted, smiling demon for so many weeks that it’s become almost a normal part of her life. Lately, the impossible things she sees in those dreams have become more, well, _beautiful_ than they have horrifying. Maybe she’s getting used to their impossibility, or maybe Michael’s making an effort for her.

That last thought…she doesn’t want to admit to it. Especially not now, with evidence that the being whose company she’d actually been starting to enjoy is a sadistic monster that traumatises and kills people thrown so brutally in her face.

And Sasha had always seen herself as such a cynic.

“Do you think she’d mind answering some questions now?” she asks. She’s not even sure she has questions to ask – she just needs to see the statement giver, talk to her. She needs to know exactly how stupid she’s been, getting cosy, getting _comfortable_.

“Hmm, maybe,” Jon replies, and hands over the form the statement giver filled out, complete with a phone number. Sasha dials it, registering the name _Helen Richardson_ only briefly, with hands that really want to shake.

The call rings out, which she was sort of expecting; not that many people pick up an unknown caller, especially not when they’ve just re-traumatised themselves. But instead of a voicemail message, there’s just…static. Loud, squealing static that makes her flinch away from the phone, earning her a concerned look from Jon.

It’s strange to say you recognise static, but she sort of does, and it makes something twist sickeningly in her gut.

She pokes her head out of the office and spots Tim collecting his coat to go and chase down some lead or other. Last she checked, he was researching some woman’s ghost story, optimistic even though it sounded a lot like _The Woman In Black_ to Sasha. “Tim, did you see which way the statement-giver just went?”

Tim looks up, brow a little furrowed as she jolts him out of his train of thought. “Ah, no? Martin?” he yells up the corridor. Martin’s been looking for some supplementary evidence in Document Storage for an older statement, and Document Storage is on the way out of the Archives.

“No, sorry,” Martin calls back. “I don’t think she went past me, I definitely would have noticed.” He probably would have as well; he keeps the door propped wide open whenever he’s in Document Storage these days, no matter how much Jon grumbles about it.

The nausea is building, solidifying into a horrid suspicion. Sasha steps back into Jon’s office and closes the door. “Jon,” she says, “think very carefully. Which door did Helen Richardson leave your office through?”

Jon blinks owlishly at her. “Ah, the one…” he trails off and looks down the length of his arm where he’s pointing, and she follows it too. They both look at the patch of wall he’s pointing at. The patch of wall with no door in it.

“Shit,” Jon whispers raggedly, pressing a hand to his mouth. Sasha wants to swear too, but before she gets the chance the corners of the office fill with twisting, echoing laughter.

Jon reaches out for her, face bright with sudden panic, and Sasha grabs his hand, eyes darting around the room. Still, still, she doesn’t notice when Michael appears, as if it’s always been there, leaning against a wall and grinning down at them.

It’s the first time she’s seen it in real life since their encounter in the derelict office block, and it looks…good. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, as her dad would have said. Which is fair, she supposes with a sick little twist of humour. After all, it just ate.

“Assistant, Archivist,” it says, bubbly and delighted and _awful_. “Did you like my gift?”

“Where is she?” Jon bursts out. “Let her go!”

“No,” Michael replies, grinning. Sasha has never felt like such a fucking idiot because there is _nothing_ human behind those eyes, nothing that possesses any kindness, any mercy.

“Get her back here!” Jon yells, and she just manages to grab him before he lunges. He twists and struggles in her arms, but she holds on tight as she can, determined not to let her insane boyfriend make another insane, life-threatening mistake. Michael has been…indulgent, so far, with them. She has absolutely no desire to check how far that indulgence will go.

“Are you going to attack me?” it asks, sounding like it relishes the idea. “It’s a good job you have someone a bit smarter with you, then, isn’t it? You haven’t grown your claws yet, little Archivist.” It smiles at him, wide and mocking,

Sasha tightens her grip on Jon and tries desperately not to throw up. _My gift_ , she thinks, and remembers the cat who lived next door to her childhood home. She’d loved it, and it had loved her, and the sweet little tabby had once dragged a dead pigeon into her bed at night and laid it on the pillow to be found in the morning, curling up beside her bloodstained and purring.

This would actually be hilarious, if only a woman wasn’t being tortured because Michael wanted to…what?

“Why did you do that?” she spits at it, too angry to bother with diplomacy. Angry at it, sure, but how much can she really blame Michael for doing what Michael does? It’s not as if it betrayed her – if anything, she’s betrayed herself. “Why let her go, if you were just going to steal her back again?”

Michael’s smile is warm and wicked. “She seemed the sort who would find their way to your door, if they had a story worth telling. The Archivist and I parted on bad terms, last we spoke. I wanted to do something nice for him.” It spreads its hands, fingers moving much too far apart.

“This. Wasn’t. _Nice_.” Jon snarls. When Michael just blinks at him, head tilted, he slumps in Sasha’s arms with a low noise of disgust.

“So you didn’t want her story?” Michael asks, leaning forward in a motion that doesn’t seem to involve a spine. “Didn’t find it interesting, _fulfilling_?” It giggles at the way Jon’s face twists. “You can lie to yourself all you like, Archivist – feel free to, in fact – but you cannot lie to me.”

“I don’t…” Jon starts, and something drops in Sasha’s stomach as she registers the conflict in his voice. That…it means something, feels somehow significant, somehow _bad_. After a second he seems to rally, pushing away from her arms. “That’s not important right now.”

“Of course not,” Michael says, voice dripping with false conciliation. It smiles at her with eyebrows raised, an _Ah, the things we put up with_ smile. Playful, it’s playing with them, because that’s all this is to it – a game. A woman’s life is in the balance because of it and Michael’s having _fun_.

Abruptly, Sasha can’t deal with this anymore. “You promised to answer my questions, so answer me. What’s it going to take for you to release Helen Richardson, and leave her alone forever?”

Michael taps a too-thin finger against its chin, expression coached in a parody of thoughtfulness. “I,” it says slowly, drawing the words out like a chewy sweet, “want _you_ to come and visit me in my corridors. That’s only fair, don’t you think? Since you’re so set on taking my wanderer from me.” It pushes upright from the wall, looming over them. Sasha has a better read on it now; its expression reminds her of moments before it sends her reeling through some impossible maze – only, _more_. A fond, sadistic, anticipation.

“A visit?” she clarifies, fighting to keep her voice steady. She knows it well enough now to know it likes when she doesn’t try to run.

“Oh, I wouldn’t _dream_ of keeping you there,” it assures her, whirlpool eyes sparkling with the lie. Then, more seriously, with a strange twist to its voice; “not until you ask me to, that is.”

 _Until?_ “But for how long, though?”

Michael shudders theatrically. “I know you’re only really human, allowances must be made, but do you really have to bring _time_ into it? Until you find your gift, of course. If you really want to keep it so much.”

Sasha wants to say something, what she doesn’t know – something cutting and righteous that will wipe the smile of this _monster’s_ face, not that she thinks she _can_ – but she doesn’t get a chance

“I’ll do it,” Jon spits, eyes locked on Michael. “I’ll play your little game, and I _will_ get her back.”

“Oh, Archivist,” Michael sighs, eyes gleaming – literally, gleaming, human eyes don’t sheen in the light like that – “I have no doubts.”

Sasha yanks frantically on her _idiot’s_ arm, glaring at him when he turns to her. “Jon! For fuck’s sake, it could be _centuries_ before it lets you out, and that’s if it ever does!”

Jon glares right back. “You don’t understand – she was so scared, Sasha. I could feel it, she was _so_ _scared._ And when I told her I believed her, she looked like – like I’d just single-handedly saved her life.” He draws in a single, shaking breath, and when he speaks again, the tremor is gone from his voice, and she can tell he’s made up his mind. “I have to help her.”

Jon, she’s come to realise, cares very much about a really select number of people, and expends very little emotional energy on the rest of the world. Then, with no warning, he’ll pull a complete heel-face turn and do something like _this_.

“I’m coming with you, then,” she says, and finds herself a bit shocked at her own resolve. They haven’t made any grand declarations, she’s not even sure she’s in love with him yet, but there’s no part of her that’s willing to let Jon walk alone into whatever nightmare Michael sticks its victims in.

“Excellent,” Michael breaks in, clapping its hands together in unholy glee. With a theatrical wave, it gestures them to a canary-yellow wooden door that has never sat in the wall of Jon’s office.

For all her certainty, Sasha finds herself frozen, head spinning with the enormity of what she’s about to do; with how quickly today has gone off the rails. Before she gets a chance to move, Jon strides across the room and practically tears the door open.

Inside is the platonic ideal of a hotel corridor, if the hotel in question had no rooms and was being shot in that strange, vivid Technicolour that always gives her a headache in films. It stretches off into the distance, but there does seem to be an end – a bend in the corridor, off to the right. With sick certainty, she’s sure that the next turn in that corridor will be a right too, and the next, and the next. All the turns will be right turns, and there will never be a centre.

Jon looks back at her, and she can see him shaking slightly, eyes blown wide in fear. But he walks forward anyway, and she follows him.

The door closes behind them with a solid, undeniable _click_ , and when Sasha turns, it’s gone. Just an empty stretch of corridor behind them.

“Well,” Jon says faintly, “this was a bad idea, wasn’t it?”

“Yep,” Sasha replies, clamping down on her shiver. “But we’re here now, and it doesn’t look like there’s any way back.”

“The only way out is through,” Jon murmurs, scrubbing a hand over his face. Then he starts off down the corridor, towards the right turning, and Sasha quickly follows him. She can already tell that losing him in this place, even for a second, would be a really bad idea.

~~~~~

Sasha’s watch starts to break soon after – or at least, she thinks it’s soon. First it slows down, then it speeds up, then it starts running backwards. She finds herself staring at it, fighting down the urge to rip it off her wrist and stamp on it, or throw it into one of the nauseatingly-patterned walls.

“Do you know how long it’s been?” she asks Jon, breaking the strange, oppressive silence that’s fallen between them. She keeps her eyes fixed on him; in the corners of her vision, the wallpaper is moving, ever so slowly.

Jon sighs out a pained laugh. “I think that’s rather the point, don’t you? I doubt time even exists here.”

“Great,” she mutters, glancing away from his grimacing face, and then away from the wallpaper, and then away from the vivid black stripe of the carpet. There’s nowhere in this place she can look that isn’t _wrong_ , doesn’t sting her eyes with its impossibility.

The heat sneaks up on her. She’s shrugging out of her cardigan and knotting it around her waist before she realises that she’s sweating, that the corridor practically shimmers with thick, muggy warmth. Like they’re inside the intestines of some great beast.

Christ, they probably are. Despite everything, what does she actually know about Michael, what sort of a thing it is? Michael isn’t even its name, according to it.

Jon rolls up his shirtsleeves, grimacing, and she notices how jittery he’s getting. It’s not just fear – he’s squinting behind his glasses like he’s got a headache, holding himself like he’s in pain.

“You okay?” she asks, keeping her voice as low as possible.

He blinks at her, confused for a second, then nods. “Just…this place is a little overwhelming.”

 _A little_ is probably a massive understatement, but Sasha doesn’t push it. She doesn’t offer her hand either, though not doing anything to help him feels like being stabbed, slowly.

When she looks away to check their surroundings again, a flash of dullness catches her eye, lying a little way down a branching corridor. “There,” she hisses to Jon, and he follows her eyes to the little pile of khaki. Surrounded by such vivid colour, it almost aches to look at, like a blind spot in her vision.

For a moment, she’s worried it’s a person, so curled into themselves only their coat is visible. But, thank God, as they walk closer she can tell it’s just a coat. A huge, incredibly thick coat, lined with fake fur; the sort of thing she’s seen polar scientists wear in documentaries. It’s lying crumpled on the floor, like someone shrugged it off and cast it aside.

“Helen wasn’t wearing this, was she?” she asks Jon, just in case, but he shakes his head.

“Another one of Michael’s victims,” he mutters darkly, and Sasha’s forced to agree. She tries to imagine stumbling from the freezing cold into a heavy, pressing blanket of heat, and the thought makes her shudder in sympathy.

Further down the corridor, she spots what looks like a scarf, pastel blue and coiled under a mirror. She starts towards it, but freezes as the wallpaper _ripples_. Jon lets out a choked gasp as the air twists, coalesces, and the hairs on the back of Sasha’s neck rise as a presence shapes itself behind her.

She doesn’t turn around, even when the points of impossible fingers trail gently over her shoulder. She doesn’t dare move.

“There’s a saying, you know, that fits you two very well,” Michael murmurs in her ear. Its voice is even worse here, barely human at all; just sounds that twist into her ear and curl around her brain. “Curiosity. Killed. The cat.” It punctuates each word with a tap on her shoulder, each one threatening to break skin. Each one a threat.

“And satisfaction brought it back,” Jon rasps from where he’s braced against the wall. “Get away from her.”

Michael laughs – or rather, _everything_ laughs, Michael included, walls shivering and floor rippling and mirrors bouncing the sound back and forth until the air is saturated with it. Jon cries out, shoving his hands over his ears and curling into himself, naked pain on his face.

“Oh Archivist, you’re funny,” it says, voice still high and twisted with humour, “but I don’t think you’re in any position to make demands. You don’t look _well_.”

 _Leave him alone_ , Sasha wants to say, but her mouth is incredibly dry, heavy air making her throat ache. She doesn’t want to look behind her, doesn’t want to see the thing that Michael becomes when it walks its domain.

“Yes, well,” Jon hisses, “your bloody corridors are making me want to rip my brain out, so forgive me if I’m a little shaky.” He shoves the heels of his hands into his eyes, nails digging into his forehead hard enough that Sasha winces. The tremors running through him are getting more obvious, more violent, and Sasha finds herself struck by a bone-deep terror that if Jon breaks down, here and now, Michael will never let him leave.

A sigh from behind her sends waves of static shuddering over her neck. “This isn’t going to be any fun if you’re not paying attention, Archivist.” Then, with a horrific brightness, “Allow me to help you!”

Before Sasha can scream, a door opens in the wall behind Jon, sending him toppling backward. It swallows him whole without a sound, slamming shut behind him and locking itself with a terrible _click_.

Clapping her hand to her mouth to keep the terrified yell in, Sasha sprints to the door, yanking on the handle with all her might. When it doesn’t budge, she throws herself against it, the wood sending a jarring impact through her shoulder and spine. Still nothing – it’s like hitting stone.

“Where is he?” she shouts, hammering desperately on the door until her fists ache and her knuckles split, smearing dull red against the eye-searing yellow. Until hands so distorted they barely deserve the name anymore curl around her wrists and gently restrain her, pull her back against something that isn’t a body.

“Shh,” Michael croons in her ear, voice making the metal of her earring vibrate. “He’s fine, sweet little assistant. Better than fine, even, he’ll be good as new.”

“That’s not an answer,” Sasha whispers, her voice going as the enormity of the situation hits her. She’s trapped in a hell dimension, entirely in the power of the murderous monster currently cradling her to itself, and Jon is gone. Jon is _gone_.

It’s too much, suddenly, it’s all too much. Monsters and murder and horror, how is this her life? What the hell did she ever do to deserve all the strange and terrible things that have happened to her?

She’s crying, she realises distantly, tears sliding fast and helpless down her cheeks, the same temperature as the air. The muscles around her ribs quake and threaten to tear her open, and she collapses back against the only thing left to her in this place.

Michael curves around her, wraps arms that are far too long around her chest and enfolds her. Where it touches her bare skin, buzzing, hot-cold wrongness skids along her nerves, blurring her vision to blessed, empty static.

Sasha has no idea how long it takes her to come back to herself, but eventually enough sanity filters through the twisting blankness that she can breathe properly. To her surprise, when she goes to pull away, Michael lets her. She leans against the wall, trying to catch her breath.

When she tries to speak, the words catch horribly in her throat and she can’t stop herself choking. She swallows and tries again. “Please, let him go.”

The faceless, twisted thing that is Michael regards her, a tilt to its head that makes its neck look broken, obscene. “He _is_ fine, you know. I’m helping.”

“I don’t trust you,” Sasha replies, brushing the tears from her cheeks, and Michael…twitches. It’s not quite a flinch, and frankly she’s not sure how to identify any emotions in the distorted form, but she still feels a flash of – what, guilt? Christ, is she seriously that stupid?

“Michael was like him,” it says, and she blinks at it in confusion. “His mind worked in much the same way, and he felt the world far too keenly. He liked to retreat sometimes, into spaces where there would be no more sights and sounds pressing in on him. I thought something similar might help your Archivist, and I was right – he’s doing much better now. He may even be ready to start his search again.” Something that isn’t a smile stretches across the face it doesn’t have. “If I let him out, that is.”

Sasha can’t think of a thing to say except, “Please.” The word feels so flimsy, so inadequate, when faced with this incomprehensible thing, talking in riddles and threatening to keep Jon from her forever. “Please.”

It sways towards her on impossibly slender, boneless legs. “And what will you give me if I do?”

“What do you want?” she answers, before her common sense can stop her, remind her that bargaining with creatures like Michael only works when you have boundaries, safeguards, when you’re _careful_. Offers like that are the furthest thing from careful.

Michael’s not-a-smile stretches even wider, and it wavers through the space between them until it’s right in front of her, distorted form blocking out everything else. It still has eyes, and they’re even more like slowly sucking pits than they’ve ever been. The thought occurs to her that she could stare into their fascinating, hypnotic depths forever.

The sharp blades sliding under her chin have become so familiar that her body forgets to feel afraid. Or maybe she’s already so afraid that no more fear can register. Or maybe, even after it’s proven just how monstrous it is, she still trusts Michael not to hurt her.

“Good,” it breathes across her lips, and then it kisses her.

It’s nothing like a kiss, nothing like a kiss _should_ be – Michael doesn’t have lips, and whatever it has instead stings like thousands of tiny static shocks against her mouth. It still makes her _ache_ ; heat flowing through her so fast, so sudden, she loses all her breath. Michael drinks it down, draws her closer and lets her melt against it as it kisses her sanity away with an almost reverent care.

When it releases her she follows, ignoring the static-sharp bite of its fingers, and it laughs as it holds her back.

“There,” it says, eyes-that-aren’t-eyes dancing. “I remember that much, at least.”

Then it’s gone, like it had never been there at all, and she’d half-suspect it hadn’t been if her lips weren’t still buzzing, hot and tender. Before she has time to do much more than blink, Jon is staggering out of a newly-appeared door, collapsing onto the eye-searing carpet.

Sasha drops to her knees in front of him, frantically scanning for damage and forcing the fog from her brain. Thankfully, Jon looks…fine. Better than, actually, when he pushes himself up and grabs for her hand, looking just as panicked as her.

“Are you okay?! Michael didn’t…do anything, did it?” The anxiety in his voice almost makes Sasha laugh – like she was the one tossed without warning into a pocket dimension.

“It…” She is going to tell Jon about the kiss, of course she is. Just – now probably isn’t the best time. “It was fine, I’m okay. Mostly just terrified for _you,_ where the hell were you?”

“I was in…I don’t know, it didn’t feel like _anything.”_ He sighs, and curls his hands around Sasha’s, squeezing them tightly. He doesn’t elaborate, but she can see the lines of pain cut into his brow have smoothed out a little, his cheeks a bit less grey. She doesn’t need to ask to know that whatever Michael did to him, he liked it.

She helps Jon stand, steadies him when he sways, and tries not to feel stung when he pulls his hand back. Apparently whatever Michael did, it was more of a temporary patch than an actual fix.

 _Let me call Michael back,_ she wants to say. _Let me get you out of here, I’ll go on alone_. But, of course, Jon would never agree. And being alone in these corridors, nobody to anchor her in the world outside them, no company but the being that owns them and would probably be happiest if she never left…that would be a bad idea.

So, instead, she says “Let’s keep going.” When Jon nods, weariness etched into his face, she takes his hand.

~~~~~

How long they’ve been walking, Sasha isn’t sure, but finally Jon gasps and pulls her to a stop, pointing down a branching corridor wallpapered in painfully vivid green.

A woman, slumped on the floor, shoulders pressed into the wall and head hanging down. Her shoulders shake occasionally, like she’s been crying for too long, but doesn’t know how to stop. Sasha doesn’t recognise her, but Jon gasps and strides towards her.

“Helen!” he calls, crouching beside her. When she won’t look up, he takes her wrists and gently pulls her hands away from her face. “Helen, it’s me, Jonathan Sims. From the Magnus Institute, do you remember?” Sasha can hear the panic in Jon’s tone, but he’s obviously trying to modulate it, to calm the poor woman. “We came to help you.”

Helen Richardson looks up, finally, but she won’t meet Jon’s eyes. Her face is raw and wet with tears. “Are you real?”

“Yes!” Jon exclaims, pressing closer like he’s trying to block Helen’s view of the corridors completely. “Yes, I promise. We’re going to get you out of here, alright?”

His words make Helen laugh, and the utter defeat in the sound pierces Sasha to the core. “What, I just get to leave? No, it’ll be back for me.” Her head falls back onto the wall, and another tear leaks out of one bloodshot eye. “If all I get is another week of thinking I’m finally safe, before I open a random door and walk right back into Hell again…I’d rather just rot here.”

“You don’t mean that,” Jon snaps, shaking his head frantically.

“Oh, but I do,” Helen replies, a bitter smile twisting her lips. “You know, I don’t think I did escape, the first time. I think it let me go. I think it wanted my relief, my hope. It wanted to take them from me. Well, I’m done.” She shrugs, slumps again. “I won’t feed it anymore.”

Jon takes her face and turns it to meet his eyes. “Helen, it’s not - We made a deal, with Michael. You can leave, it won’t come back for you.”

For a second, Helen just stares at him blankly. Then something clicks, and she jerks her head back. “No,” she almost moans, “don’t do that, don’t _say_ that. I told you I didn’t want to hope.”

Jon hangs his head, looking up at Sasha in mute appeal, and she steps over to crouch by their side. Her presence shocks Helen enough that she raises her head slightly. “Who’s she?”

“Sasha James,” Jon answers, “my – we work together.” Despite the situation, she can’t help finding his awkwardness endearing.

“I’ve encountered Michael before,” Sasha tells the crumpled wreck of a woman, keeping her voice gentle. “It finds me…interesting, I think.” At that, she feels a little quiver in the floor beneath her, though Jon doesn’t seem to notice anything. Michael’s listening in, then. “That gave us some leverage, enough to bargain for your safety.”

At the word _leverage,_ Helen looks up sharply. “Do you have to stay here now?” she asks anxiously. “Was that the deal?”

“No, we can leave,” Jon assures her.

Helen blinks hard. “Why would it agree to that?”

“Beats me,” Sasha mutters, and the floor quivers again under her feet.

Helen stares blankly at the floor, arm curled to her chest like broken wings. Sasha can see Jon getting more agitated and she rests a careful hand lightly on his shoulder. He looks back at her and she can see him steeling himself.

Finally, Helen looks up. “I don’t believe you, and I’m not even sure I believe you’re real. But maybe I’m more stubborn than I thought I was.” She shakes her head, and her eyes seem to sharpen, become more focused. “Strange, the things you learn about yourself. Help me up?”

Sasha ends up supporting Helen through the corridors, since it’s obvious Jon is fast approaching his sensory limit again. The other woman is taking most of her own weight, but she’s leaning pretty heavily on Sasha’s side. Not that she begrudges Helen the support, or the contact; it’s obvious she needs it.

“Save a lot of people from nightmare dimensions, then?” Helen murmurs, and Jon snorts.

“You’ll be our first,” Sasha tells her, and gets a tired little chuckle in response. She glances over to Jon to find him watching her, face still pinched in pain but eyes shining.

Helen is the one who sees the door first – she lets out a soft, broken cry, and tears away from Sasha’s side. She _sprints_ for it, yanking it open and gasping in relief when she sees what’s on the other side. Sasha hurries forward, Jon close behind, to see Jon’s office, just as they’d left it, and the relief almost takes her out at the knees.

Helen flings herself through into the office, crumpling on the floorboards with a cry of pure joy. Sasha and Jon follow her out quickly, and the door shuts behind them with a satisfying slam.

Jon sags back against the wall, grey-faced and trembling finely. “Thank God,” he sighs, face broken open in relief, and she’s suddenly overtaken by the same brightly flaring urge to be close to him she’d felt after the tunnels. Maybe later, when Jon’s feeling more stable and less overwhelmed. She settles for leaning against the wall next to and hugging herself as tight as she can.

“No,” Helen Richardson gasps from the floor. “Thank _you_. Both of you, you…” she shakes her head, hauling herself off the floor on shaking legs and sits heavily in the chair. “Thank you.”

Jon blinks at her, then abruptly says “Excuse me,” and strides out of the room. A few seconds later, the door to Document Storage slams shut.

“Oh,” Helen says softly, “did I…”

“It’s fine,” Sasha assures her. She remembers the quiet Sunday morning Jon had talked her through meltdowns, what they were like for him. As much as it kills her to leave him alone right now, he’d stressed to her that being alone was exactly what he’d need. What can she really do except respect that?

The stress of worrying about Jon does at least keep her from thinking about – everything. Corridors stretch off in her mind, too-bright colours printed on the back of her eyes. The plain, cream walls of Jon’s office are incredibly soothing, but the afterimages of that swirling wallpaper keep creeping into the edges of her vision. She shivers, suddenly realises that she’s freezing.

“Awful, isn’t it,” Helen murmurs, and when Sasha meets her eyes, the understanding she sees in them makes her feel that little bit better.

~~~~~

After what feels like forever, sitting in silence with Helen and pretending not to notice her cry, Sasha recovers enough to wander to the kitchenette and get them some water. According to the antique-looking wall clock, they lost four hours – Tim and Martin are already long gone. When she collects her phone from her desk, she finds Tim’s sent a series of texts, the worry in them well-hidden. She should reply, she knows, Tim’s her friend and he’s probably getting more and more panicked the longer she leaves his messages unanswered.

She just…can’t. Not right now. She doesn’t even have the energy for a two-word _I’m safe_.

Back in Jon’s office again, Helen thanks her for the water in a soft, scratched voice, and asks after Jon. At that point, it’s probably been long enough that she can let herself go check on him, so she hauls herself up once more and wanders over to Document Storage.

There’s no answer to her soft knock, but when she slowly opens the door, she sees why. Jon’s asleep, curled in a tight ball on the cot. He’s got the lights off, but with the door open she can see that the room is a mess; random office equipment scattered on the floor, a few new dents in the walls. No blood that she can see, on Jon or anything else, so she bites down her worry and starts to tidy up as quietly as she can.

When she’s almost done, she looks up for putting a stapler back together to find Jon watching her from the bed through heavy-lidded eyes. His face is still grey with exhaustion, but the lines of pain have smoothed out a little.

“You – “ he starts, then sighs, smoothing a hand over his throat. She recognises that gesture from the few other times she’s seen Jon tired or anxious enough to have trouble speaking. She looks back to the stapler, giving him some space.

Eventually, Jon says “You don’t have to. Tidy up. I can, in a minute.”

“That’s okay,” Sasha tells him, “I don’t mind. You need some rest, it’s been a hell of a day.”

That gets her a laugh, soft and cracked. “How’s Helen?”

“She’s doing better,” she replies, heaving herself up and putting the now-mended stapler back on top of a cabinet. “I think she’s about ready to go home.”

“Me too,” Jon mutters. He hauls himself off the cot in stages, using a filing cabinet for support. “Is my place alright?”

“Sure, your mattress is much better than mine.” Honestly, she’s just thankful Jon’s happy to have company. She doesn’t want to be alone right now.

Getting out of the Institute is harder than it should be; some strange, animal part of Sasha’s brain is gripped with dread at the thought of leaving, like the Archives have ever protected her from anything. Still, they get there eventually, and Helen grabs a taxi with the air of a seasoned Londoner. She needs to be helped to the curb, but she gives the driver her address in a clear, certain voice. She thanks them again, her smile weak but genuine.

“It’s weird,” she says, as Sasha gives her a hand into the cab. “Seems like weeks ago that nice man from your Institute was calling another one of these to get me here.”

“What nice man?” Sasha asks distractedly, half her attention focused on how droopy Jon’s looking, leaning against the Institute’s outer wall with his hood pulled over half his face.

Helen hums. “Eli, I think his name was? Eli, Elias, something like that. He asked if I could give a statement – I’m not sure how he found me, but I’m sure you lot have contacts at hospitals, stuff like that. He had to call me a taxi, I was finding getting around so difficult.” A shadow passes over her face at that, before she forces it away. “He seemed polite, though in hindsight, I really wish I’d said no.” She smiles apologetically at Sasha as she clicks her buckle into place.

Sasha blames her bone-deep exhaustion on the fact that Helen’s words don’t fully sink into until the cab pulls away from the curb and merges with the London traffic. When it does, she freezes.

 _Elias_.

Why the hell would Elias send Helen to the Archives? What could he possibly gain from that? It’s not as if they don’t know he’s up to something dodgy, between Mary Keay’s statement and Jon seeing him the night they went into the tunnels, but she’d assumed that was all he was doing – spying on them, trying to figure out how much they knew. Not actively trying to…what? Interfere? How the hell had he even know where to find Helen?

If he knew how to find her, presumably he could find out what exactly she’d gone through. What had put her through it.

Did Elias know about Michael?

An ambulance goes past with sirens on, traffic parting grudgingly for it, and Jon makes an awful choked noise behind her. It sounds bad enough that all thoughts of _what the fuck is happening_ get shelved in favour of calling another taxi for them.

When they get in, Jon leaves his seat-belt off in favour of slumping face-first into her lap. His hands come up to cover his ears, blocking out sound as well as light. Sasha aches to touch him, run her fingers through his hair or over the vulnerable curve of his neck. Instead, she curls her hands into fists and watches London go by, all the people walking past who had perfectly normal days at work. She’s pretty impressed that she doesn’t cry.

~~~~~

Sasha slams back to wakefulness at three in the morning, and at first she’s not sure why. Then she hears the luxurious creak of a door being ever-so-slowly pulled to, and she’s out of bed like a shot.

The sudden movement wakes Jon, who blinks tiredly at her when she hushes him. She picks her way carefully to the bedroom door, opening it as quietly as she can, and slips into the dark and silent living room.

There’s a door set in the far wall, and whatever her half-asleep brain might be trying to tell her, Sasha knows it’s never been there before. Jon must see it too, as he comes up behind her shoulder, because he flinches back violently. “Christ,” he hisses, “what now?”

As if in answer, the sound of the kettle being filled and flicked on drifts from the kitchen. They exchange worried looks, and Jon is the first to break and cross the room. Not seeing any other option, Sasha joins him, even though she doesn’t really want to see Michael again for, oh, a year.

She has not yet told Jon about the kiss.

In the kitchen, Michael – looking fairly human, thank God – is peering into Jon’s mug cupboard. It hums to itself and selects three, laying them out and plopping in teabags. As she and Jon come to hover in the doorway, it twists its neck – about a degree too far round – and flashes them a smile, pouring the boiled water into the mugs.

“Milk, sugar?” it asks, doctoring one mug with a heaped tablespoon of sugar.

“We’re not drinking that,” Sasha tells it frankly, myths about eating something else’s food flashing into her mind. “It’s probably hallucinogenic now.”

“As you like,” Michael replies, seemingly unconcerned. It curls its hands around its own mug with a content little smile, and props itself against the counter in a position that would be deeply uncomfortable for anything with bones.

They share a moment of what to Sasha is deeply uncomfortable silence, before Jon clears his throat. “Why are you here?” he asks it, voice still rough even after resting it for hours.

Michael gives one of its painful-looking shrugs. “To see how you were holding up, of course. Aftercare, I think it’s called. I don’t believe I intended to wake you.” Sasha decides to set the _aftercare_ comment aside for the moment, for the sake of her own sanity.

“So what,” Jon responds belligerently, “you were going to watch us sleep?”

Michael gives them a blithe look. “It’s not as if I haven’t done so before.” Jon blinks at it, horrified and speechless, and it giggles at his expression.

“That’s…” Sasha takes a deep breath. “Please, don’t ever do that again.”

It blinks at her in apparent confusion. “Why shouldn’t I? Do you even know how vulnerable you are in sleep? Precious few defences, bodies still and insensate, minds laid bare and inviting – just waiting for something to slip inside.”

“Something like you,” Jon mutters, lips pinched.

Michael sighs deeply, and Sasha’s sure she can see the air recoil from whatever it has instead of breath. “Exactly, Archivist. That’s why you need me _there.”_

“You’re trying to protect us?” Sasha asks it, not quite managing to hide her incredulity.

When Michael turns to fix her with its gaze, she has to fight not to flinch away, and even harder not to lean in closer. Her lips ache for a second, and she bites the sensation away. “Haven’t I always, dear assistant?” it says, a strange, soft resonance to its voice.

“No,” she replies immediately, and its laughter sets the glasses in the drying rack ringing.

“Well,” it says when its laugh has petered out, “I am now. Not to say I might not change my mind, of course, what I am is not known for its constancy. But for now, I would prefer you alive. You too, Archivist,” it continues, flicking a lazy, almost-proportionate hand at Jon, “despite everything.”

She can practically see Jon trying to talk himself out of taking offence. “Why do you care?” he asks. “About Sasha, I mean, you don’t seem to like me nearly as much.”

Michael tips its head and studies him with uncomfortably bright eyes. “You’re difficult, Archivist. For one, you are an _Archivist_ , and that is an entirely different sort of a thing. If you were _not_ an Archivist, you would be…a little less interesting, perhaps, but much less difficult. This one,” it indicates her with a sweep of its mug, “is not an Archivist. Obviously. As to why I care…Perhaps because there is something of Michael in her – or, at least, I believe that’s what drew my, _hah_ , my eye. Not much of Michael, but some. Curious, open-minded, and entirely too devoted to _you_.” The last word is spat more than said, a sudden flare of some deep, alien rage. Jon flinches back in his chair, and Sasha has to fight the urge to step between them.

“You keep saying _Michael_ ,” she puts in quickly, trying to get its attention away from Jon. “Before, in your corridors. I thought that was you?”

Michael throws back its head and laughs till the lightbulb hums. “Oh, what a question! I am Michael, but I am not _Michael_. Do you see?”

“Really, no,” Sasha replies.

It sighs, like she’s a kid who’s forgotten her five times table. “I am _Michael_ , yes? But I am not Michael _Shelley_. Except for the parts where I am, of course, but let us not dwell on those.”

Jon twitches. “Michael Shelley, I know that name.” He turns to Sasha. “It came up when I was researching Gertrude. He was one of her assistants, left the Institute in 2009.”

She can feel Michael’s mood shift like a change in air pressure, and this time she does step in front of Jon. When she dares to look at it, she finds its face twisted in inhuman rage, eyes burning into hers. Its fingers grind into the china of the mug, sending dust spiralling to Jon’s kitchen floor.

“Michael!” she says sharply. “Whatever Jon just said, he didn’t mean to offend you, okay? We really have no idea what’s going on.”

Thank God, her words seem to penetrate far enough that it backs off, setting the mug down on the counter before it can do any more damage. “No,” it murmurs, soft and considering. “of course you don’t. Hard to remember, sometimes, when you’ve both come so far on so little.”

“So explain it,” Jon says, “ _please_.” He moves to stand beside Sasha, hands open and gaze dropped to the floor. “If you want to protect us, help us _understand_.”

For a minute, Michael just studies them. Then in one too-smooth movement it hoists itself to sit on Jon’s kitchen surface, crossing its legs with a theatrical flourish. Taking the hint, Sasha props her shoulders against the wall and settles in.

“Michael Shelley was an archival assistant,” it begins, meditative in a way she’s rarely heard from it. “But he did not leave the Institute – or, at least, he did not leave the Institute to continue his life somewhere else. He did not continue his life.”

“He died,” Jon murmurs, and Sasha’s stomach drops. She already knows she’s not going to like where this is going

Michael hums, considering. “Perhaps. He is gone, certainly – is that death? You could say that part of him survives, but you could equally say that none of him remains.” It must catch their expressions – Sasha confused, Jon frustrated – because it lets out another deep sigh. “I, a being created to distort and deceive, am trying to be truthful and explain something that is, by its very nature, inexplicable. You’re going to have to forgive me my, ah, imprecisions.”

“Of course,” Sasha says, and it slants her a little smile before continuing.

“You see,” it tells them, “Michael Shelley was the last of Gertrude’s assistants. By the time he worked for her, she had perfected her meticulous net of deceptions, and he knew her as a sweet, wise, absent-minded old woman. Worthy of great respect, yes, but requiring care, protection. She ensnared Michael with a grace and precision I cannot but bring myself to admire.” It chuckles, just once. “He would have done anything for her, poor fool, and she knew it. She _used_ it, used him.” Another laugh, this one even flatter. “But, I suppose, when you’re _saving the world_ , you can justify anything, any action. All in the service of the _greater good_ , yes? That’s what Michael told himself, at least, as he wandered deeper and deeper into my corridors, as he found my heart.”

The laugh that slips from Michael’s lips this time is softer, almost sad. “Do you know, he never even hated her. Not even as he opened me and I opened him, as we climbed inside each other, as becoming me unmade him – and it _hurt_ , I could feel it, can feel it still; I, who was never meant to _feel_ at all. Never once did he renounce his faith in his Archivist.”

Beside her, Jon flinches, and Michael’s smile turns sharp. Quickly, before it can dig its claws in, Sasha asks, “Saving the world from what, exactly?”

That sharp smile turns to her. “From us, of course. Me and mine, all those of It-Is-Not-What-It-Is. All who serve madness, and falsehoods, and impossibilities and distortions; who are shaped from and feed off the fear that these bring. I did not have a name, then – I was simply a door, to an absurd and twisted maze, and I was to open to all the places that never were, never could be. We were at the height of our power, our glory, and we were going to make the world anew.” It shakes its head slowly. “And Gertrude Robinson was going to stop us.”

“Our ritual was reaching its…” It searches for words for a second, before continuing –“apotheosis, perhaps, is the best word for it. We were so, so very close, when Gertrude Robinson and Michael Shelley arrived at the site of our Great Twisting. Zemlya Sannikova, that lush tropical island floating in the ice-choked Arctic Ocean, that has never existed and most likely will never exist again. They walked into the heart of our great and awful structure, contorted and impossible and _beautiful_ , pulsing with the fear of those poor souls that had come to witness us, feed us.” Its face is softer than she’s ever seen it before, full of aching, inhuman yearning, and Sasha has to force back the sympathy that wants to well up in her. Has to remind herself that this is a monster, and whatever ritual it’s talking about was probably going to end in an apocalypse, the death of billions.

“Gertrude Robinson guided Michael through our insanity,” Michael tells them in a sing-song, faraway voice, “even with his mind spooling outwards in a desperate attempt to comprehend the incomprehensibility that surrounded him. She’d told him, you see, that he was going to help her save the world, and Michael had always wanted to be a hero, though he had never believed himself capable of it. Now, here was his chance – he could save everybody, ever, and all it would cost was his own silly little life.” Michael’s smile twists into bitterness. “Gertrude Robinson had chosen well. He made the decision in a heartbeat, and he hesitated to sacrifice himself no more than his Archivist hesitated to toss him into my jaws.”

As Michael talks, Sasha notices, it’s started to drum its fingers on the sharp, crooked angle of its knees. “She guided him to my door, and she gave him – I still have no idea how, but she gave him a map. A map to me,” and it giggles like the very thought is absurd. To be fair, from what Sasha’s bruised memory will let her recall of its corridors, it is. “So, when he opened my door and stepped inside, he knew which paths to walk, which doors to open. He knew how to find the…the heart of me. Not that there is a place inside me that is more _me_ than any other place, it’s more a, a state of mind, really.” It waves a lazy hand through the air, and to her tired eyes it seems to leave a trail. “I am, at my core, the essence of being _lost_. Michael’s map lead him to be lost so thoroughly that he lost him _self_. And in losing his self, he found me.”

Sasha can’t repress a shiver.

“You see,” Michael says, swaying hypnotically forward and backwards, “I was never meant to have a self, to _be_ in the same way that you both are, that Michael Shelley was. And to become, so suddenly, a some _one_ as well as a some _thing…_ it was agony.” Its whirlpool eyes slip closed, just for a moment. “I cannot describe that pain, that _violation_ , except to say that it was the worst thing I have ever experienced, and it went on for a very long time.”

For a moment, Michael falls silent, apparently lost in memory. When it begins again, some of the faraway quality to its voice is gone. “It destroyed our Great Twisting, of course. Wrecked our glorious alter, shattered us and brought us to our knees.” It pauses. “So to speak. We failed, and Gertrude Robinson sailed away from Sannikov Land hale and whole. And I,” it laughs once, teeth that seem too white sinking into its lip. “I was Michael. I did not want to be Michael, but I was regardless. Becoming Michael stole from me the one thing I wanted most, the only reason I have ever known, but there is no way for me to un-become. Poor doomed Michael Shelley made his choice, after all, and what are any of us, but our choices? Even the ones we never knew we made.”

Sasha finds herself staring at its wry, pained smile, a little dumbstruck. In her defence, she’s had a hell of a day, and probably wouldn’t know what to say to any of that even if she wasn’t exhausted.

Jon is blinking just as blankly at Michael as she is, but he recovers faster. “The coat we found, in your corridors – was that his?”

“Mmm,” Michael nods. “Strange, I had no idea it was even still there.” It smiles, like the impossibility pleases it.

“And you were trying to, what, destroy the world?”

That sets Michael giggling. “No, not _destroy_ , Archivist. What good would an empty, lifeless world be to _us_? But I’m sure you would have seen our great work as a destruction, at least of everything you knew as _your world_. Oh, it would have been spectacular.” That faraway, fanatic gleam bathes its face for a moment, before fading. “Don’t worry your pretty heads about a repeat performance, it will be centuries before we can try again. A pity – if we’d only waited a few more years, we’d have had even _more_ fear to fuel our Twisting, and perhaps we would have been too powerful to stop.”

“Brexit-powered apocalypse,” Sasha mutters under her breath, and then has to clamp her lips shut on a hysterical giggle.

“And Gertrude really just…” Jon stops, obviously struggling with the words, with the reality of what his predecessor had apparently done.

Michael just regards him, thankfully without any obvious homicidal rage. “She did indeed _really just_. Whatever you though Gertrude Robinson was, Archivist, she was not.”

“Yes,” Jon replies, “I’m beginning to get that impression.” If Sasha’d thought finding all those petrol orders had worried him, it’s nothing to how disquieted he looks now.

He opens his mouth, presumably to ask another question, but it splits wider in a massive yawn. He sighs deeply when Sasha turns to him, raising an eyebrow. “It’s hardly my fault, I _was_ asleep.”

Together, they turn to stare at Michael accusingly. Sasha’s not expecting it to look at all repentant, and it doesn’t. She’s not quite expecting the…fondness, though. “I wasn’t expecting you to be so easy to wake, you’ve had _quite_ the adventure. But don’t let me keep you up. Sleep is important, or so I’ve heard.”

It’s not that Michael looks any more human with that strange, soft expression, not exactly, but it makes the wariness Sasha’s been trying to cultivate that much harder to hold on to. Or maybe she’s just tired. God knows, she’s so tired. Tired enough that when Michael pointedly doesn’t leave the flat when she and Jon stumble to bed, she doesn’t object.

Jon doesn’t mention Michael’s continued presence, though he shoots her a particularly dubious look as they climb back under the covers.

“What do you want me to do?” she hisses at him. “Maybe it does like me best, but that definitely doesn’t make me the boss of it.”

However Jon was going to answer, it’s cut off by another massive yawn. “Fine,” he mutters. “I suppose we’re better off with the devil we know, anyway.”

 _The devil we know_ , Sasha thinks. As much as she doesn’t like it, she can’t deny some of the quiet tension that’s become so much a part of her life has eased, knowing Michael is around. Who needs to be scared of monsters, when you’ve got one in your living room? Besides, between the worms and the Not-Graham, Michael’s made it clear that, as far as it’s concerned, it’s the only monster that gets to hurt her. And it’s probably had it’s fill of her fear for the day.

Jon passes out almost as soon as his head’s back on the pillow, but Sasha lies awake for a little while, brain valiantly trying to process at least _some_ of Michael’s story. She finds herself flicking her gaze between Jon’s face, softened in sleep, and the dim light seeping under the bottom of his bedroom door. Michael doesn’t come in, seems to be staying in the kitchen judging by the silence in the rest of the flat, and she tells herself she’s glad. Mostly, she is glad.

As her eyelids droop lower and lower, Sasha distracts herself by mentally drafting a resignation letter. She won’t actually send it – she’s not prepared to leave Jon facing down the Eye alone, especially not now Elias is getting so…invested in their investigations. But it’s a helpful thought exercise; reminds her that she’s got an out, if she needs it.

Something tells her she’s going to end up needing it.

**Author's Note:**

> [this series has a playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6gMCGcMgKXhJ1MmMKdqifp?si=AXkJys_ARiWF8lDD-pn3Bg)


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